


Palindrome

by Prochytes



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Fringe
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-04
Updated: 2011-09-04
Packaged: 2017-10-23 10:13:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/249171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prochytes/pseuds/Prochytes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Knowing people out of order can become a habit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Palindrome

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for Doctor Who “Let’s Kill Hitler” and Fringe to the end of Season Two. The line Walter quotes is from "The Tempest" V.1.275-6. Originally posted on LJ in 2011.

A  
   
She sat in the corner of the room, knees drawn up tight against her chest.  She had done the Bad Thing, and they would be angry. The blackened walls made “tut, tut” noises as they cooled.  
   
She did not lift her head when the door opened, and shut again.  
   
“Hello.”  
   
She raised her eyes. The voice belonged to a woman she did not know. From where she was sitting, the woman looked very tall. Blonde hair tumbled round her face.  
   
“Who are you?” she asked, hugging her knees a little tighter.  
   
“A friend.” The blonde woman who talked funny knelt at her side.  
   
“You haven’t come before. How did you get in?”  
   
The woman flourished a wallet. “I borrowed a pass.”  
   
She peered at the wallet, and frowned. “But it’s blank.”  
   
“Not everyone sees that, sweetie. And even those that do can be persuaded. People are curious.” The blonde woman looked sad. “But you already know that, don’t you, Olive?”  
   
She bit her lip, and looked away.  
   
“I don’t have much time, Olive, so I’ll keep this short. I wish I could help you more than I can. The people here will try to make you a weapon, in a war you didn’t start. They’re smart. They’ll try so hard. But when I was a little girl, like you, someone very wise told me the truth. No one has to be a weapon. You’ll forget that, for a while. But you will remember.”  
   
“Will I be alright?” she asked.  
   
“No, Olive, you won’t. But you will be amazing.”  
   
She could feel the Bad Thing building inside her once more. “You need to go. Now.”  
   
And then the world was fire, again. When it died, the blonde woman was gone.  
   
B  
   
“Agent Olivia Dunham. How’s the neck?”  
   
Olivia squinted upwards. “I’m sorry?”  
   
“Actually, forget I said that.” The woman with the English accent deposited herself on the bench at Olivia’s side, with little apparent regard for her personal space. “This can get a bit confusing, even for me.”  
   
Olivia cocked her head on one side. “Have we met?”  
   
“I honestly wouldn’t know, sweetie.” The Englishwoman held her gaze. “Have we?”  
   
Olivia’s eyes widened. “Yes. I remember you. You were in a burnt-out room with me, when I was a little girl.” She frowned. “But... I shouldn’t remember that. I _never_ remember anything about that time.”  
   
“Where?” The Englishwoman leaned forward, intent. “Where were you a little girl, Olivia? Where did this begin?”  
   
“Jacksonville. But you already know that. You were there.”  
   
“That’s not how this works, sweetie. If you don’t tell me, I can’t know.” The Englishwoman sighed. “Jacksonville it is. There’s a very old debt that needs repaying.”  
   
“I... I think I nearly killed you. Somehow.” Autumn leaves scudded by like the ghosts of flame.  
   
“No. You helped to save me.”  
   
“Who are you?” Olivia’s eyes darted across the Englishwoman’s face. “All these years, and you haven’t changed. Are you an Observer? Are you in the Pattern?”  
   
“I’m in lots of those, sweetie. I’m easy that way. But I don’t really like to watch. Have you ever heard of Eyam?”  
   
Olivia’s brow creased. “No. What...”  
   
“A village in England. The Black Death took Eyam in 1665. They say it came in a parcel of dress patterns.”  
   
“What’s your point?”  
   
“I’m River Song, Olivia Dunham.” Her smile was bitter. “I’m the plague that hides in all the Patterns. Dr. Walter Bishop... he says he never met you before Fringe Division?”  
   
“Yes.” Across the path, Olivia could see Charlie returning with their coffees.  
   
“Rule Number One, sweetie.” The Englishwoman rose. “The doctor lies.”  
   
C  
   
“Wow.” The woman who called herself Mels panted, grinning bloodily. “I knew there had to be someone out there who could keep up with me. So this is what ‘feeling it’ is like. I am _sold_.”  
   
Olivia gasped for breath, wincing at what that did to her abdomen. Mels had already connected so many times. “I won’t let you hurt Walter. Whoever you are.”  
   
Mels shrugged. “Seconds out, then.” She rolled her shoulders, and raised her fists again. “Plenty of room left on my dance-card.”  
   
Olivia’s eyes flickered to the door.  Mels’s grin broadened.  
   
“Expecting the cavalry, Olivia? Don’t get your hopes up. I did my research. Frankenstein’s hot son is off chasing leads, and your pretty little assistant’s on her lunch-break. You know, for someone so uptight, you don’t exactly stint yourself on eye-candy. So it’s just you, me...” she tilted her head at Walter, who crouched hunched up in a corner “....and him.”  
   
A plaintive moo reverberated through the lab.  
   
“And the cow. Which, I have to admit, is very cool. But that’s pretty much it for the mighty Fringe Division.”  
   
“What’s your beef with Fringe?” Olivia eyed her opponent warily.  
   
“None at all. Love a good fringe, me. One of my favourite hairstyles. Except they don’t call it that here in the States, do they? What’s the word you use instead? Oh yeah... ” Mels removed something from her pocket. Olivia’s stomach clenched as she saw what it was. “Bangs.”  
   
Mels pulled the pin from the grenade, and lobbed it at where Walter was cowering. Olivia desperately lunged to intercept, but a kick to the stomach doubled her up before an upper-cut sent her to the floor.  
   
“Relax, blondie.” Mels’s hands were locked around her throat. “Grenade’s a dud. The plan was never to _kill_ Walter. I just needed something to unsight you. They did a good job when they built you, Olivia Dunham. I’ve got the bruises to prove it. But seriously: caring? It’ll kill you every time.”  
   
Olivia strained against the chokehold, but Mels’s grip was easily a match for hers. The world blackened at the edges, as Mels prattled on:  
   
“Super-soldier smack-down. Is this what it’s like to fight yourself? I suppose Dr. Bishop’s the expert on _that_. I really wouldn’t kno...”  
   
Mels stiffened. As Olivia broke free from the other woman’s waning grasp, and delivered a punch with all her own remaining strength to Mels’s jaw, she saw a dart protruding from her neck. Mels slumped to the ground at Olivia’s side.  
   
“Speak for yourself, sweetie,” said a familiar voice from the doorway.     
   
“You again,” Olivia rasped, massaging her throat. “What are _you_ doing here?”  
   
River Song replaced her dart-gun in a holster, and moved forward. “Just passing through. Thought I’d drop in. Break some bread and the First Law of Time. You know how it is.”  
   
Olivia continued to stare at her. River sighed.  
   
“Mels is a monster. If she had grabbed Walter, she’d have put him to work. Traps, weapons, poisons... everything she needed to help her take down her target.” While she was talking, River had moved to stand beside Mels’s unconscious body. She stooped and picked the younger woman up, without any obvious exertion. “If you stick her in a prison, she’ll just escape. She needs to be left somewhere that’ll put her off. I’m thinking Nova Zembla.” She blinked, looking distant. “Oh yes. It _was_ Nova Zembla, wasn’t it? Bloody cold, as I recall. I am such a bitch.”  
   
Olivia felt bruised all over and dangerously close to spent, but forced herself to clamber to her feet. “River...”  
   
“We don’t have time for this, Olivia. You have no idea how important it is that she doesn’t get a look at me. I’m skating on the thinnest temporal ice as it is.”  
   
“You still haven’t answered my question. What are _you_ doing here? Why do you care?”  
   
River bit her lip.“Mels is a monster. But she’s also my responsibility.”  
   
“ _This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine_. _”_  
   
The two women, startled, turned to the corner. Walter was sitting at a side-table, watching them both with hooded eyes.  
   
“A line from Shakespeare. One that means more and more to me as I grow older. I’m not the person I was, Dr. Song.” He looked from her face down to that of the woman in her arms, and something akin to recognition passed over his. “I suppose that’s true for many of us.”  
   
“Yes,” said River tightly. “It is. I thought that _this_ was what you meant, Olivia. But now I suspect that it all goes further back.” She headed for the door, still cradling Mels. “We’ll talk again when I have more time.”  
   
“But...” Olivia began.  
   
“Goodbye.”  
   
Olivia listened to the shutting door; then turned to Walter. “You recognized her, didn’t you?”  
   
“Yes. Once, long ago, a blonde woman who called herself a doctor showed me a wallet with nothing inside it and asked to talk to a frightened little girl. I allowed her to do so.”  
   
“Why?”  
   
“I was curious. In those days I considered that reason enough.”  
   
“We need to talk, Walter.”  
   
“Yes, Olivia. I believe we do.”  
   
B  
   
“Dr. River Song.”  
   
“Well, it’s nice of you to jump the gun like that, but actually I haven’t even been viva-ed yet and I shouldn’t...” River looked up. Her smile disappeared. “Olivia Dunham.”  
   
“In the flesh. No longer bruised.” Olivia gestured at the bench.  “Mind if I take a seat?”  
   
River stared at her warily, but nodded.  
   
“Thank you.”  
   
“I’m not often in this.. neck of the woods. Bad associations of arse-kicking and hypothermia. How did you find me?”  
   
Olivia pointed to a strap with a spinning black-and-white disc attached that encircled her left wrist. “Walter built this. Apparently, it bings when there’s stuff. That’s Peter’s translation, anyway. I’m afraid I lost the thread of what his father was saying.” Olivia sat back. River’s eyes had not moved from her face. “Walter has a theory about you and me. He says that every time we meet, I know more and you know less.”  
   
“Sounds plausible. I seem to be letting that become a habit.” River frowned, and looked away. “I nearly killed you, once.”  
   
“No. You helped to save me.” Olivia leaned forward, intent. “There are things I still have to learn, River. There’s a very old debt that needs repaying.”  
   
A  
   
She was running, faster and further than she had ever run before. She knew in her heart that it was hopeless. Wherever, whenever she ran, they would still find her. But every gasp of her breath, every drum-beat of her pulse, was another tiny victory against the silence.  
   
“Hello, Melody.”  
   
She span around. The woman who had stepped out from the side-street behind her was tall and lean. Blonde hair tumbled round her face.  
   
“Who are you?” she asked.  
   
“A friend.” The woman stepped towards her, hunching her shoulders to take an inch or two off her height. “I don’t have much time, Melody, so I’ll keep this short. I wish I could help you more than I can. The people who are chasing you will try to make you a weapon, in a war you didn’t start. They’re smart. They’ll try so hard. But when I was a little girl, like you, someone very wise told me the truth. No one has to be a weapon. You’ll forget that, for a while. But you will remember.”  
   
She bit her lip. “Will I be alright?”  
   
“No, Melody, you won’t. But you will be amazing.”  
   
FINIS  



End file.
